163 Two In Darkness

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Do not click on this, unless you wish to travel forward in time to the start of the pay back series.






My Lady Lisa found this gem for you and me. Thanks babe.




Joe Cocker. High Time We Went.









The moon baptized the desert. Furious rain blurred the lights growing brighter, from way down yonder in the dark.


“There they are Sean! We musta dusted them hard!”


“Huh. Well so we did, Tellesco, so we did.”




The blur of lights spread apart, and went off to the left and the right, and they smeared and tumbled off into their new trajectories.


A black hole enveloped the night.



Sean and Tellesco stood on the crumbly tar, rain dousing their shivering bodies, as they looked down into the abyss, and then they looked at each other.




Then, much further down the dark country lane, another pair of glinty eyes, blurred and painted yellow, grew from where the first pair had parted ways.



Sean’s skin crawled. What the hell was going on?



“Tellesco. Get back in your car.”


“But why? I want to laugh at them when they get here. We dusted them so well that---”




“TELLESCO! Get Back in your CAR!”


“Boo Hoo!”








Sean had always been a skeptic and a pragmatist. These are, indeed, solid qualities to have in your mental toolbox. But it may be good to not let the shiny tools out-gleam the dirty ones.


Sometimes, dirty is better.


Sometimes, you have to go by feel, in the dark.




Sean hopped back into his own ride, and he did not know what to do.



He sat there, and his knuckles trembled in the downpour.



He looked up into his rearview mirror.



Sitting duck.




How many times had he felt this way in his youth? Waiting for the next thing to happen to him.







Victim.




Band Of Skulls. Sweet Sour.














(He waited for his father to return home from the bars and strip clubs…)



The headlights in his rearview mirror blurred, but their blur grew brighter with each moment that passed...









(The snore of his mother in the room down the hall…)



The fearful sky above pelted the roof of his ride with louder and sharper pings that sounded like a ball peen hammer...







(The slump of a leather jacket dropping to the floor in the kitchen, the smack and tingle of keys on the kitchen table, sliding across and then jangling onto the floor below. Sean would never, ever wear leather at all…)


The wind howled outside of the car, and them lights blurred into two sets of two…









(The mutter of a swear, and the stagger of footfalls, echoing down the hallway…)


The lights behind him and Tellesco became clear now…







(The twist of a bedroom doorknob…)





Tellesco sat there in his own car, awaiting the rest of us to come, so he could laugh in our faces and joke about how we were slow pokes, with the rain dumping into his shattered passenger side window…





Sean understood that it was not we bastard punks who were coming up fast and bright. He realized that Tellesco and he were in danger. He knew that he would have to save them both.





Alone.






Alone.





In the dark.






Yet again…









You see, that had been his mission all along, to save Tellesco. He knew why, even if he didn’t exactly know why…



Frozen in fear he saw the lights coming closer.








(The door creaked open… Bad… Bad… Bad…)






Perhaps he knew through instinct that in saving Tellesco, he could



save




himself






...










And now, he had put them both into danger, because he had been full of bravado, feeling like a victor, like someone who had chust come from one hell of a victory.





Water and fire.




Baptism and explosions.




Black hole and light.









Never the twain should meet.










Sean gunned his engine and he swung his car around.






The rain blurred his eyes.







= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =







God Help You.



God Help Us All.



---willies out.







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